AD&D 1E XP Value for Monsters?

[ilgatto]

I think you've already earned enough XP from this exercise to go up a level!

I'll tell my DM!

 

[ilgatto]

@ilgatto , I'm starting to think you're worrying too much about whay "they" were thinking at the time, where the true usefulness of this exercise in fact lays in redesigning the SA and EA lists - and maybe all of Appendix E in the process - such that "we" can make more sense of them today.

Fair enough.

Since I was trying to make sense of the immunities and resistances last, shall we try and see if we can do something with that?

MM, p. 5: “MAGIC RESISTANCE indicates the percentage chance of any spell absolutely failing in the monster’s presence.”

I think one of the biggest problems here is the fact that “magic resistance” is worth an EAXPA.

Take, say, a triton leader with 4 HD (and no "magical ability"), which has MR 90% as its sole “special defense”, and therefore gets +65 xp for one EAXPA.

Compare that to the gelatinous cube (also 4 HD), which has “spell immunity (fear, hold, polymorph, sleep), immune to electricity, immune to paralyzation, resistant to cold”. If all of that would stack (and we consider “spell immunity” as just a single “special defense”), it would get +100 xp for four SAXPBs, while it is actually a lot more vulnerable to spells than the triton leader, even if we would take the MM quote above referring to “spells” literally.

IMO, this doesn’t seem right.

Let me see if I can insert a table here...

Nope, I’ll have to cobble something together again.

So here are the contestants as far as I can see:

 

[Lanefan]

First very quick thought there is that blanket % resistance to all magic should be EA no matter what, while immunities or resistances to certain specific spells or effects or elements should be SA (resistances just one SA no matter how many different things you're resistant to, immunities 1 SA per different immunity except spell immunity 1 SA no matter how many different spells).

Thus for Wraith it might be:
SA - damage reduction (special wpn required to hit)
SA - immune poison
SA - immune cold
SA - immune paralyzation
SA - immune to various spells and their effects

 

[ilgatto]

First very quick thought there is that blanket % resistance to all magic should be EA no matter what, while immunities or resistances to certain specific spells or effects or elements should be SA (resistances just one SA no matter how many different things you're resistant to, immunities 1 SA per different immunity except spell immunity 1 SA no matter how many different spells).

Thus for Wraith it might be:
SA - damage reduction (special wpn required to hit)
SA - immune poison
SA - immune cold
SA - immune paralyzation
SA - immune to various spells and their effects

Sorry about the delay, but I've been trying to get my head around a new approach to the phenomenon of "special attacks" and how they are listed in the XPV table in the DMG and Appendix E, which may well have consequences for what, exactly, a "special defense" is, and how it should be rewarded.
Though that hasn't really gotten me anywhere regarding the xp values in Appendix E, it has allowed me to read it in a way that suddenly made a lot more sense to me than it has ever done. Could be me, of course, but I do now believe that maybe they actually were thinking something when they made that Appendix!

Anyway.

So, first, the "damage reduction" in the table I cobbled together refers to a monster suffering less damage from some weapons than usual (in the case of the wraith, that would be 1/2 damage from silver weapons). Because I couldn't upload the full table, I've had to delete most "non-immunities/resistances" from it. So there's no "magic to hits" in it. Mille excuses for that.

Second, I agree that all non-blanket MR resistances should probably be one SAXPB (e.g., damage reduction, resistant to cold, etc.).
Not so sure about always heaping the immunities together in one SAXPB, though, for there's the golems and the rakshasa, which are immune to just about all spells, and which should surely be worth EAXPAs?

And then there's the question of what "immune to cold" means in practice. I'd say that a lot of that depends on whether one rules that, for example, a white dragon's breath weapon, the ice toad's cold blast are "magical effects".
If they are not, then "immune to cold" probably means "immune to spells that inflict cold damage", which would mean that it falls in the "all spell immunities are just an SAXPB" category.
If they are magical effects, then immune to cold should probably be an SAXPB in its own right?
And how does the "freezing" attack of the brown mold fit into all this?
Brain = frozen.

Also, the wraith example does not solve the problem of the triton leader vs the gelatinous cube:

SA - immune to various spells and their effects
SA - immune to electricity
SA - immune to paralyzation
SA - resistant to cold (resistances to certain specific spells or effects or elements)

That still leaves it with +100 xp vs the +65 xp of the triton leader.
I guess a lot will depend on whether one decides that all cold-, fire-, etc., effects worth their salt are actually "magical effects" (breath weapons, undead cold touch, salamder heat touch, whip & flame ttack of the type VI demon). If they are, then the gelatinous cube's "elemental" immunities and resistances could all be heaped together under "immune to various spells and their effects", for:

SA - immune or resistant to various spells and their effects (specific spells or effects or elements)
SA - immune to paralyzation

Which would leave it with +50 xp vs the +65 xp of the triton leader.

In fact, as much as this is more or less suggested in Dragon #89, which, IIRC, even goes further and also heaps immunity to magical attacks (e.g., paralyzation) under "any immunity or resistance". But then, that article also sticks to the "magic resistance as EAXPA rules"-rule.

Should there be some turning point when "many, many immunities" simple become an EAXPA?

Should we treat certain categories of monsters that are immune to a lot as just getting an EAXPA for that?
Undead? Yup, immune to a lot, so EAXPA.
Devils, demons? EAXPA. Magic resistant, you say? Here's another EAXPA!
Any creature with an "alien physiology", such as a gelatinous cube or a black pudding? EAXPA.

Problem here is that that kind of thinking sort of started happening only after 1E.

Hmm... and is that the siren's call of 3E I hear over yonder horizon?

 

[Lanefan]

Also, the wraith example does not solve the problem of the triton leader vs the gelatinous cube:

SA - immune to various spells and their effects
SA - immune to electricity
SA - immune to paralyzation
SA - resistant to cold (resistances to certain specific spells or effects or elements)

That still leaves it with +100 xp vs the +65 xp of the triton leader.

I don't think this matters. Whatever codification this all leads to is probably going to turn Appendix E on its head anyway by boosting the xp value for some creatures and reducing it for others, so if something leads to numbers different than what App-E shows, don't sweat it.

Should there be some turning point when "many, many immunities" simple become an EAXPA?

Should we treat certain categories of monsters that are immune to a lot as just getting an EAXPA for that?
Undead? Yup, immune to a lot, so EAXPA.
Devils, demons? EAXPA. Magic resistant, you say? Here's another EAXPA!
Any creature with an "alien physiology", such as a gelatinous cube or a black pudding? EAXPA.

Alien physiology isn't one I'd ever considered, and for me it'd be SAXPB at best and maybe not even that.

The problem with making "many immunities" an EAXPB is that doing so would probably in fact reduce the total xp the creature was worth! If say a 5 HD creature has four different immunities each giving an SA of 40 (so 160 total), converting those to a single EAXPB reduces that bonus to only 75. Maybe it's just me, but somehow that seems counterintuitive.

In cases like this I'd usually want to go with the higher end-result number as it's more reflective of the actual threat/challenge (potentially) posed by the creature.

 

[ilgatto]

I don't think this matters. Whatever codification this all leads to is probably going to turn Appendix E on its head anyway by boosting the xp value for some creatures and reducing it for others, so if something leads to numbers different than what App-E shows, don't sweat it.

I'd be fine with any final results not corresponding to what Appendix E says, for that is inevitable anyway.
But the problem with the triton vs the gelatinous cube is still that the first gets less xp for its blanket immunity to spells in general than the gelatinous cube gets for being immune to just some of them. Especially because the triton's magic resistance also makes it all but immune to spells that paralyze or use electricity or cold.

Alien physiology isn't one I'd ever considered, and for me it'd be SAXPB at best and maybe not even that.

Ah. That's a 3E thing I use for 2E xp. Sort of slipped in.

The problem with making "many immunities" an EAXPB is that doing so would probably in fact reduce the total xp the creature was worth! If say a 5 HD creature has four different immunities each giving an SA of 40 (so 160 total), converting those to a single EAXPB reduces that bonus to only 75. Maybe it's just me, but somehow that seems counterintuitive.

Yeah, it would, in at least some cases. But it would also elevate others above what they are worth now, which is probably a good thing (e.g., the vastly underrated skeletons).
And it would mean "categorizing monster types", which is probably not the way to go for 1E.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out how inserting tables in posts actually works, so I can more easily update progress. Is probably gonna take while, though, for I'm not too... clever with things like that.